CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS

In response to 911 The US Government contracted with a private company, Process Forwarding International, to act as the Central Authority for the US Government for incoming Hague requests (Outgoing requests are not effected as the US Central Authority does not ever handle those.)

The Hague Convention does not require a fee for the Central Authority of a country to process a request, and indeed most countries do not charge a fee to process a Hague Request. Unfortunately, since PFI is a for profit corporation, it charges fees to foreign individuals wishing to serve US persons and entities. As a result, some countries are now charging a fee to process US requests to maintain parity with the requests charged their citizens by PFI.

Unfortunately, this means that we are often forced to pay a filing fee to some central authorities (those seeking parity with the PFI fees charged to their citizens) which we must pass on to our clients. We make every effort to minimize expenses and costs possible, but these foreign fees are simply beyond our control.